Surf's Up

Viewers To Ride The Wave Of More Channels

Time Warner Communications has begun a channel-expansion project in west Volusia County that - for a price - will give people more program choices, ranging from food to animals to auto racing.

That means customers who get standard service will see cable offerings increase from between 61 and 65 channels to 81. The expansion includes space for more premium channels, including Starz! and MOVIEplex, which cost extra.

Deltona is the first city in west Volusia to get its services upgraded. The project began last year, and all of Time Warner's Deltona customers should have the expanded cable offerings by Jan. 15.

Most people in the rest of west Volusia, including DeLand, Orange City and Lake Helen, will get the same expanded viewing options within six to eight months, Time Warner spokeswoman Dianne Pickett said.

The upgrade is happening as the cable company prepares to wire its customers for digital connections. Time Warner is installing fiber-optic cable along west Volusia roads to compete with satellite companies.

With a digital system, Time Warner will have the capacity to offer up to 200 channels, better picture quality and quicker access to the Internet, Pickett said. That should happen sometime next year.

In the meantime, west Volusia customers this year face a sometimes confusing smorgasbord of changes in their cable service. They include a shuffle in the channel lineup, rate increases and more channel options.

In the upgraded areas, nine channels are being added to the standard package, bringing the number to 62 channels.

In addition, the company's Premier Pak, a package of channels that costs $1.49 extra each month, now includes five channels. There's also a fee for a special box to get those channels.

Those channels are the Outdoor Life channel; the Golf Channel; Turner Classic Movies; the History Channel; and the Disney Channel, which had been offered as a more-expensive premium service.

The upgrade comes as Time Warner raised rates for its 650,000 Central Florida customers, including about 145,000 in Volusia. The rate increases vary across the county, depending on where customers live and what services they want.

Time Warner's coverage area is divided into franchise zones, each with a different fee structure. On top of that, the company has seven subscription packages, each with varying stations.

For instance, the combined package of basic and standard channels in Deltona, DeLand, Orange City and other parts of west Volusia went up $2.08, to $33.32. In Daytona Beach, the price for similar service increased $1 to $31.25.

As for DeBary customers, Time Warner is expected to begin providing cable service to their homes later this year as part of a swap with Comcast Corp. If federal regulators and city and county governments approve, the trade should be completed this summer.

The new rates for the rest of Volusia kicked in Jan. 1.

New Year's Day also brought a change in the channel lineup. The change happened over the New Year's weekend because the company was making room for new programming.

Time Warner officials warned that some customers wouldn't be able to tune into any of the channels for brief periods. However, two Deltona neighbors - David Van Buren and Robert Hess - said they lost service for more than 12 hours.

Hess, a retired dentist, said after he complained to Time Warner on Saturday, a customer service representative told him that 7,000 customers were having similar trouble getting cable service. Hess said he called back later that day and said another representative told him the problem was being fixed but that 2,000 customers remained without service.

``I was ready to throw the SmartBox in the garbage,'' Hess said.

Pickett said there were no reports of lengthy disruptions in service. She also said she had no record of either Van Buren or Hess requesting service calls at their homes.